My country, 'tis of thee

My country, 'tis of thee,
If thou hadst the quiet pride of integrity,
of strength and of courageous intensity,
Thy leaders all, all me and we
the people and our varied religiosity --
beliefs, intentions, focus and perversity --
could make peace worldwide without war;
could invite our friends and "enemies", near and far
with respect to sit with us without fear, on par,
asking all to share beliefs, intent, humanity, needs and more.

What do we want? Why must desire be met or "Kill!"?
Why cannot humanity forgo want when our abounding riches will?
Why do we hide behind our richly funded towers, walls and corporate war machine
Selling death, while we imagine we imagine peace, love, a wonderful world and nothing so obscene.

Static Comes with the radio ...From 2004

Static comes with the radio.

Ahhhh, riding down the road at night in an open car.

Turn on the brights to see the deer and a big moth car-

ving long sinusoidals in the headlight road toward Mars.

Oh, the beautiful cicada music wack-wacking amongst the whirring tires,
the poles thup thrupping climb-spike jagged rips and tears
beside the blacktop you know will break again the dangling wires

Cars, mars, tires, wires, comes my roady nightly woo

bump tha-dump into the yellow double splutty stew
while on the windshield splatter tsst tsst of myriad, deadly spew.

Static comes with the radio.